physical graffiti

with the release of FireFox 3 - i am back to using FF as my default browser.

As loyal readers know, i'm a fickle bitch when it comes to web browsers.
I think this comes from 2 things:
1) there are web standards. so you can change browsers without changing your experience (sort of)
2) Switching between safari and firefox doesn't require much relearning (opera is a different story)

But lately i find myself using 2 browsers regularly.

I use safari for mainstream browsing, and i use firefox when i need to cross over to the darker side of the web.

The issue is that many mainstream websites use scripts/flash/java for the normal functioning of their sites, and if you disable these things you get a degraded or non-functional experience.

Firefox is great because if you use adblock and noscript then you have a very safe and uncluttered browsing experience. But i found that for trusted sites noscript just got in the way.

Now that we have tabbed browsing It would be nice if one could set window specific settings, so that i could turn on noscript for a window and turn it off for another window. As far i know this is not possible, so the simple work around is to run 2 browsers.

The latest and greatest version of firefox is out!

go get it at http://mozilla.com

It is possible that your firefox browser will automatically tell you this. so sorry if this is old news.

Now let's see how quickly the extensions and themes get updated!

For those of you who keep track you know i'm a fickle bizaatch when it comes to my web browser.

I actually paid for OmniWeb. But then i found that many sites did not render properly so i ended up running 2 browsers: omni and camino. I got sick of this, so i pretty much have gone back to running camino. i don't feel too bad about the wasted cash, because the omni group does develop some good software and it is good to support them in general.

The big news is that firefox 2 is being released today (or tomorrow?...soon anyway). Firefox on mac is getting better all the time, and it supports some nice extensions that camino does not.... (although this may change too).

So for the time being
1) Camino
2) Firefox
3) OmniWeb
4) Safari
5) Remote Desktop + IE (sometimes you just gotta go IE)

Google has released an online calendar application, 'gCal'. It is creating a lot of buzz. I have tried it out and i like it. Unfortunately, it does not work in Safari, my browser of choice, these days.

The first question is , why use gCal?

One reason is that i use both macs and PCs, and I have not found a really good iCal compatible calendar app on my PC. Also , having the calendar live online means that i can find it and EDIT it wherever i am. It has some other nice features as well, which you can read about.

The second question is, do i need to switch browsers again?

So i downloaded camino, which is like the love-child of firefox and safari: mozilla based, but built specifically for mac. It is really fast. and it has some nice options like 'play animated gifs only once'. You might not notice this , but if you go to a website that has some stupid advertising looping over and over, it uses up a HUGE amount of CPU.

So for now Camino is king.

I am writing this entry in Internet Explorer Beta 7.
My browser preferences have a long history... i probably can't even remember all the browser's i've used.
I started back in 1994 with NCSA Mosaic in Windows 3.1.

I think, if memory serves that the various versions Netscape became my browser of choice until Internet Explorer version 5 (or was it 6) came out and was clearly better. That was the demise of Netscape and the browser wars were over. Then M$ sat on their asses and didn't do any significant development for IE. Sure there were other browsers, like Opera, but the are insignificant in terms of overall market share.

When firefox was released, i quickly became a HUGE fan of tabbed browsing and mouse gestures, as well as the ability to add extensions to streamline my online life. When i used some one else's computer who was using IE i would roll my eyes in frustration!

"HOW CAN YOU LIVE WITHOUT TABBED BROWSING??!?!?!?!"

Finally, M$ has released what appears to be an essentially reverse engineered version of firefox. It supports tab browsing, even using the same shortcuts (ctrl-T opens a new tab, ctrl-clicking on a link opens it in a new tab). i have only begun to test drive it, partially because firefox has been pissing me off, and partially because i'm doing the best i can to procrastinate.

I have to say , it looks slick. there is a minimun of wasted space. it has built in pop-up blocking (like firefox), it has a search window (like firefox), it has a nice security feature for your parents - the automatic phishing checker. Essentially, if someone foolishly clicks that link in their email suggesting that they log in to prevent ebay from cancelling their account, it will catch it.

Some people love to hate M$. Not me. I judge a product on its merits. If IE7 is better than firefox then i will use IE7. until firefox 2.0 comes out ;)

Memory for Firefox (version 1.5, but also others) is like a box of donuts to homer simpson.
It gets eaten up very quickly.

I find that after leaving firefox open for a few hours it grows over 100MB, sometimes more than 200MB if i have had a lot of tabs open. But it doesn't give up the memory even when i close up most of the tabs/windows.

There is a solution.

1. open firefox.
   
2. type this in your address bar : about:config
   
3. right-click and select new -> boolean
   
4. For the name config.trim_on_minimize
   
5. For the value True
   
6. Restart firefox
   

Now, when you minimize firefox it will release memory. If you had a ton of stuff open you might notice some delay when you restore the window.

note: I have only tested this on windows. When i get home i'll check on the mac, unless one of my faithful readers gets to it first ;)

update: This doesn't seem to have any effect on the Mac (OSX 10.4.4; Firefox 1.5.0.1). Moreover, even when firefox is hidden or minimized it continues to use 10-12% CPU. NOT ACCEPTABLE.
The biggest feature i miss when using safari is being able to search with the /. I prefer the features of firefox, but i am annoyed at it's inefficiency!

So i'm a very fickle web browser user.

On winXP firefox is a clear winner. But on the mac, i have to say that safari is a real competitor.

the big issue for me is that firefox seems to use a ton of CPU. it may be some plug-in that i have installed.

That is the double-edged sword of the extension model for firefox. it can make using the browser excellent or it can cripple it.

So since 10.4.4 i'm back to Safari.

Has anyone has similar issues?

Maxi Preist - Message In A Bottle